Business

Startup Gives Free Stuff to Student Influencers

Sumpto, a startup that identifies top social-media influencers at colleges across the country, sends students free gifts from brands in hopes that they will tweet, post and share photos of the free swag on their social-media accounts.

The New York-based startup is looking to harness the influence that some college students have over their peers. Brands that partner with Sumpto can offer free samples to the network's most active and influential social-media users. The students get free stuff, and the brands get to see their product endorsed over social-media channels by the most credible sources on campus: the students themselves.

Student ambassadors are identified by Sumpto based on metrics, such as the number of Twitter followers they have, or the number of friends they have on Facebook. Students can also boost their Sumpto scores by referring other friends to the site, or filling out a survey that reveals their offline activities and habits, including which clubs they've joined, and whether they're part of Greek life.

Students are then awarded a score between 1 and 100, and brands can set limits for how influential they need students to be in order to redeem certain products, according to Sumpto founder Ben Kosinski.

The startup has more than 19,000 college influencers on the platform, half of whom have joined in the last month, Kosinski said. The site works with more than 70 brands, which can search for specific influencers by gender, Greek affiliation, and geographic location.

Students are not required to share their thoughts on every product they receive, but some choose to do so, anyway. Keely Warren, a junior at East Carolina University, said she endorses every product she gets — even items that are meant primarily for men. As a cheerleader and founder of the Phi Mu sorority, her reach on campus is large, and she feels that her endorsement may influence others who want to know about a product.

"I have a wide range of followers, and my followers have a wide range of followers," she said. "If I can take a couple [minutes] out of my day and tweet this or retweet that, there's no telling who may see it."

Others, like Arizona State senior Kyle Herbert, who made a name for himself around campus by creating popular YouTube videos, are more particular about which products they endorse. "I'm a slave to my followers," he joked. "I don't want to upset them by posting about stuff that they wouldn't want to hear about. But if it's something I use often or would use, I'm always blasting it out."

No matter which products these social-media influencers choose to share, the main drive seems to be universal: free stuff. For Santa Clara University senior Charlie Gliwa, if brands are willing to give him things for free, he's happy to help them spread their message. "I think, 'Why not?'" said Gliwa, who has worked with Sumpto for about a year. "Why would a kid not want a box of Popchips? Why would a kid not want a free pair of sunglasses with their college's name on the side? Kids pay for that stuff, anyways."

Herbert agrees. "Who doesn't like getting quote-unquote free stuff, or a gift? It's always nice to get new things."

Part of what makes endorsing the products an easy decision is that Sumpto works with brands that give students what they actually want, Gliwa added. The college senior has written reviews on his music blog about wireless speakers and headphones he was given, and one of his friends wears the free Popchips shirt to the gym when working out.

The key for Sumpto will be keeping the relationship between students and brands as natural as possible, and so far, the startup is doing just that, Herbert said. "I'm going to feel like it's a job if [Kosinski] is hitting me up like, 'Hey man, I need you to tweet something out today,'" he explained. "But I don't feel pressure from Sumpto."

Gliwa, too, is optimistic that this form of peer-to-peer marketing has the potential to stick around college campuses for years to come. "I only think it's a matter of time until Sumpto's just massive," he said. "Once they build their student following up, and can say, 'Okay, we have 8,000 kids in this [particular] California area' — brands are going to be all over that."

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